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MAXIMS 

of Life 
and Business 






Thinking, trying, toiling, and trusting in 
God, is all of my biography T 

(Telegram to Bridgeton [N.J.] Y.M.C.A.,in 
response to request for sketch of his life.) 


MAXIMS 

OF 

LIFE AND BUSINESS 

JOHN WANAMAKER 

With an Introduction by 

RUSSELL H. CONWELL 



1 * 

» •* 


Harper & Brothers, Publishers 
New York and London 






MAXIMS 

OF LIFE AND BUSINESS 


Copyright, 1923 
By Russell H. Conwell 
Printed in the U.S.A. 


i>-x 



MAY “7’23 



©C1A705322 


A * I. I 




FOREWORD 

When a great and good life goes out after 
a continual influence for the uplift of man¬ 
kind through many years, the loss is star¬ 
tling and sometimes appalling. At such a 
time it is very important to continue that 
inspiringinfluenceaspowerfully and strongly 
as is possible. It is a clear duty to mankind. 

A friend, who was long the most intimate 
associate of Mr. Wanamaker, has felt it to 
be his duty to preserve, in convenient form, 
these sayings of Mr. Wanamaker, and in so 
doing he has made us all his debtors. 

This painstaking task has not been per¬ 
formed as a cold duty, but is dictated by 
a warm and deep friendship which Mr. 
Wanamaker appreciated greatly. There¬ 
fore, these wise sayings, which speak for 
themselves, mean much more, as they so 
clearly and forcibly represent the tribute 
of a large-hearted friend. In this unique 
collection Mr. Wanamaker’s precious influ¬ 
ence will be extended through the many 
years to come. 

The assistance of Mr. Gordon H. Cilley 
has been very important, and is gratefully 
acknowledged. 

Russell H. Conwell. 


February / 5 , 192^. 


The only wish I have is 
that I could have done 
all my work better. 





% 


CONTENTS' 

PAQB 

Business and Success . ^ . i 

Character-building .6o 

Human Relations.79 

Citizenship.99 

Education .105 

Life.112 
















> 7 > 




MAXIMS 

of Life 
and Business 


I have read and searched and 
listened to wise men, and made 
best use I could in the little scraps 
I have written of everything that 
I thought might be useful to others, 
struggling like myself to make the 
best of life. 



MAXIMS 

OF 

LIFE AND BUSINESS 

BUSINESS AND SUCCESS 

C ARELESSNESS in business, even in 
little things, is its worst moth. 

Taking good care of a small sum, saved 
week by week, has been in thousands of 
cases the foundation of a large fortune. 

Moderate profits will not make money 
quickly, but a long experience proves that 
it is much the best way to make money 
surely. 

It is not extraordinary circumstances, or 
rich friends, or large capital, that create 
the golden opportunities of life. It is some¬ 
thing in the person that thinks and gets an 
idea, and seizes the first possible moment 
to do what he can toward developing it. 

[I] 


MAXIMS 


A wise man is a maker of opportunities. 

The generalship of life means competency 
and enterprise 

To have failed once is not so much a pity 
as is to not try again. 

All businesses grow by what they have 
given to them to feed them. 

To think hard and quickly, see the core of 
a subject, seize it and base action upon it, 
is the secret of successfulness. 

The getting of money by humble persons 
begins most often by shutting olF almost 
every outlet of self-indulgence, watching 
the pennies, and saving, little by little. 

No man’s work is done on earth, so long as 
he can patiently labor and give anything 
to his family, city and nation which will 
add to its knowledge, wealth, improve¬ 
ments and importance. 

[ 2 ] 


BUSINESS AND SUCCESS 


All the gates of the business world are open 
to every one. 

There is no lasting benefit from anything 
received by falsehood or fraud. 

Underdone work makes underdone and 
undependable men and women. 

To have no eyes except for your mill or 
your warehouse is the serious mistake of 
any life. 

There is never a time that the world does 
not want and greatly need the right man 
in more places than one. 

Wrong methods in any business are a 
species of cancer that must end in the 
weakness or extinction of strength and 
final destruction. 

If brains constitute qualification for a busi¬ 
ness man, why not equally so for a woman, 
who often surpasses a man in her intui¬ 
tions and efforts? 

[3] 


MAXIMS 


Our responsibilities are making our oppor¬ 
tunities. 

It is not the leap at the start, but the 
steady going on, that gets there. 

Business capital is good common-sense, 
intelligence, industry and saved-up money. 

Just to drive ahead, not knowing where we 
will come out, is a species of senility, no 
matter how young or how old we are. 

No man on earth is so happy as the man 
who loves his work and goes home at night 
with a contented heart because of a good 
day’s work well done. 

Anyone who thinks he can be negligent in 
business is on the road to ruin. No man 
should be satisfied in thinking only of his 
long and good experience, his excellent loca¬ 
tion, his large run of customers, and “let 
it go at that.” It is wise for him to think 
of his weak points, and take steps imme¬ 
diately to remove them. 

[4] 


BUSINESS AND SUCCESS 


The man who makes decisions with a fixed 
purpose of carrying them out is, humanly 
speaking, unconquerable. 

Go slow in any plan that is irrevocable and 
unchangeable at any time or under any 
circumstances after it begins. 

Almost every man, unless he mistakes his 
abilities and choice of a calling, has enough 
sap in his young manhood to give him a 
good start. 

Many of the men who thought themselves 
sharper than other men, and able to take 
a short cut to success, were oftener deceived 
than otherwise, and came back with chalk 
on their backs instead of cheese in their 
tubs. 

‘‘Do not difficulties greatly hinder suc¬ 
cess.?’’—Never, never! Surmounting dif¬ 
ficulties gives new strength, new ideas, 
more energies, and creates heroes who 
otherwise would have been only mere 
ciphers on life’s battlefields. 

[5] 


MAXIMS 


No human being should permit himself to 
be a mere machine. 

will go myself and attend to it/’ and 
“I will see to it at once/’ always succeed 
in getting things done. 

To give birth to an idea, to secretly cherish 
it, to develop it and live down oppositions 
to it, is a fair life-work. 

No honest person is down so far that he 
needs to stay there, unless satisfied and 
content with his condition. 

The waste of time for want of planning its 
best uses is the costliest expenditure of our 
lives. ‘‘Time is money,” and it is so much 
more than money. 

To have something to do is worth while, 
even if there be no necessity driving us to 
it. Occupation drives away care and the 
small troubles of life. There is a joy in 
being useful that no idle man knows, any 
more than a mole in the ground. 

[ 6 ] 


BUSINESS AND SUCCESS 


There is a price, of patience or labor, that 
must be paid for the most worthy things. 

All men may seek the great ends of wealth, 
honor, praise and love, but the price is 
high. 

To do the best you can and be a good loser, 
if you cannot win, is always the best way 
to play the game. 

Caution is a fret to the impetuous, but it is 
better to suffer slight pains than to be 
pitched headlong off your horse. 

Business-doing has its delights, and it is a 
mistake when it becomes mere drudgery 
or skinllintism. The mere jingle of money 
in the merchant’s till will never satisfy a 
real man. 

Almost every human being has some nat¬ 
ural gift, and is very much nearer than he 
thinks to the staircase of success, if he 
would only take the first step and keep on 
until he got to the top. 

[7] 


MAXIMS 


To believe you cannot do a thing is a way 
to make it impossible. 

Knowledge and experience are the best two 
feet any one can have to equip him for 
successful living. 

It is pitiful if no one understands you, but 
you can understand yourself, as Edison 
did, and ‘‘get there’’ if you have a good 
idea, and keep at it long enough to work 
it out. 

To consider carefully events of the past 
lights a lamp upon the way farther on. 
There are more encouragements than set¬ 
backs behind us if we will take the time to 
count them up. 

A great nature harassed by misconception, 
misunderstood, picked at, hurt and dis¬ 
couraged, bravely pushing forward along 
life’s chosen pathway, despite the wind 
and wet, storms of unfriendliness and oppo¬ 
sition that stagger him, will win victory 
if right and patient enough, in the long run. 

[ 8 ] 


BUSINESS AND SUCCESS 

Feebleness generally courts failure. 

A man often has trouble from putting all 
his time in one place. 

Three-quarters of all work is drudgery, 
unless we love it and keep cheerful 

The more perfectly a man knows his busi¬ 
ness, the more he pushes forward to study 
his business that he may make new 
achievements. 

Few men buckle down to find out their 
own inventiveness. Let us emulate, excel 
and experiment in the things we do—and 
who knows what we may discover and 
thereby benefit ourselves and the world at 
large ? 

It is a fine thing to be cautious, but to be 
rich in wet blankets is such a setback that 
it leads to the suppression of endeavor. 
Many a man or woman has seen a star, 
which by little doubts raised by advisers, 
became overclouded and was never seen 
again. 


[9] 



MAXIMS 


Only an honest soul can conduct an honest 
business. 

No mistake or failure is as bad as to stop 
and not try again. 

All the right kind of a fellow wants, to get 
forward, is, “Give me a chance.” 

The interests of work-givers and work- 
doers are indissolubly bound together. 

As a general thing, it is the quiet people 
who do the most thinking and perform the 
most good work. 

Every man is at his best when he adds 
enthusiasm to whatever he honestly believes 
in. Both power and progress will then 
enter into his undertakings 

It is for us to go straight on with the duty 
of the hour, and the way opens as we push 
ahead. Simply the reason of it is that 
experience is teaching something every 
day that we never thought of before. 

[ lo] 


BUSINESS AND SUCCESS 


Labor of some kind is a necessity for well¬ 
being to every human being. 

Intense ambition and sound common-sense 
will work success for anybody at anything 
that is legitimately serviceable to the 
world. 

Real merit does not need any pushing to 
get to the front. The home-made engine 
of honest personal endeavor to use his own 
faculties will carry a man forward. 

There are times to stop and take reckoning 
as well as times to go forward. A man must 
always have his wits about him, matching 
the winds and ready to quickly take sound¬ 
ings of the course he is sailing and the 
depths he is in. 

A clear and good conscience, which Heaven 
helps us to, is enough capital to begin life 
with, for every one in good health who is 
determined to be recognized by his faith¬ 
fulness to the humble duties he may have 
to begin with. 

[II] 


MAXIMS 


Hurry is the child of unpunctuality, pro¬ 
crastination and irritability. 

Most people who fail only work half-time, 
take too many holidays and are quitters. 

No one ever did anything worth while in 
this world, that he was not criticised by 
somebody. 

Happy is the man who knows he was born 
to work, who knows he can work, and that 
by work v/ell done he can keep on climbing 
as other men have done, to more enjoyable 
and profitable work. 

While too much enthusiasm is better than 
none, the large majority of us can only 
achieve an approach to eminence by per¬ 
sistent energy, without which man is not 
much more than a two-legged creature. 
Dreaming never catches on to anything; 
but with a blue sky in our hearts, common- 
sense in our heads, and some energy and 
activity to labor, we may hunt success¬ 
fully for a red ribbon of distinction. 

[ 12 ] 


BUSINESS AND SUCCESS 


There are endless resources to every true 
man who is determined to overcome his 
mistakes. 

Having an old horseshoe “for luck” is 
not equal to lifetime savings for your 
daughter’s dowry. 

The roads to success are so simple that 
any one with good sense can see straight 
along to their termination. 

To have the good judgment when to go 
forward and exactly when to stop is to 
have the prime factors of each day’s work. 

Whatever opposition, or however strong 
the conditions to be faced, Forward, always 
and ever Forward, begets confidence and 
overcome all obstacles. 

Is there anything in the whole world half 
so good as being straight, right and four¬ 
square, able to work hard, earn an honest 
living, look everybody in the face and not 
be afraid of anybody or anything? 

[13] 


MAXIMS 


Responsibilities gravitate toward persons 
who know most. 

Any one thing well done is worth living 
and working for. 

To lose the right moment of doing things 
is often to lose all. 

That which cost a lifetime to obtain may 
be lost in half an hour. 

The capital of trade and commerce is much 
more than money. There must be visions, 
principles and profound devotion to well- 
matured plans faithfully carried out, bene¬ 
fiting the public as well as the owners and 
investors. 

The lamp of hope burns perpetually for 
these who hold on to their visions and 
strive to attain. Progress may be slow 
and with some setbacks, but every defeat 
of a heroic man brings him nearer to vic¬ 
tory, turning his bones into iron and his 
flesh into flint. 


[14] 


BUSINESS AND SUCCESS 


Time is money, with a big IS. 

Opportunities grow stale unless promptly 
seized and used. 

Uprightness is even better capital than 
executive ability. 

A business life can be as highly honorable 
as any other, if we keep clear of entan¬ 
gling alliances. 

Long study of men and women and wide 
observation justify the statement that the 
majority of people are not fully awake. 
We live superficially, half-heartedly. Many 
of us fail to rub the eyes of our souls open 
to get thoroughly awakened. 

Men come and go, whose names seem to be 
buried in their graves, because they left 
nothing behind them but money. It is the 
men and women like Clara Barton and 
Frances Willard and B. Franklin, who do 
something that benefits the world, who 
are never forgotten. 

[15] 


MAXIMS 


A hurried, half-done piece of work only 
adds to our discontent. 

To almost every man known to the writer 
was given an elective opportunity to make 
or lose his way. 

It is so given that some men must see 
things before other men, nor can it be 
humanly explained. 

Content and carefulness make poor men 
rich, while discontent and idleness make 
rich men sour and poor. 

Many persons have an idea that one cannot 
be in business and lead an upright life, 
whereas the truth is that no one succeeds 
in business to any great extent, who mis¬ 
leads or misrepresents. 

To have the disappointment of a door shut 
in front of us is something, but not every¬ 
thing. Many a time, to be stopped and 
forced to take another road has turned out 
to one’s great advantage. 

[i6] 


BUSINESS AND SUCCESS 


Money is only metal, if mentality is not 
back of it. 

Doing the same thing over again may be 
tiresome, but it helps to do the thing 
properly. 

The prizes in all the games of life are won 
by the strong, determined, far-sighted and 
fleet-footed chaps who have trained them¬ 
selves by self-denials and constant effort 
along definite lines. 

To keep duties from treading on each 
other’s heels they must be disposed of 
promptly as they come along. He who has 
the habit of throwing upon ^‘to-morrow” 
the work of to-day, only adds to his own 
burdens. 

Every living thing, man included, finds the 
earth and sea are each a granary and a 
storehouse, with abundance for every crea¬ 
ture, but each living thing must go after 
the food and not wait for some other to 
put it in its nests. 

[ 17] 


MAXIMS 


There are men and women who do more in 
an hour than a half-earnest man would do 
in a day. 

All great developments of ideas come mod¬ 
estly and silently to fruition, without blare 
of trumpets or pomp of praise. 

Splendid lighthouses of life are they which 
have been built upon the shores of obscur¬ 
ity by the boys of humble birth. 

To stay at the lesson until it is learned and 
stop by the work undertaken until it is 
completed is the real thing. To remain 
attached to a purpose or a chosen calling 
is six times out of seven the secret of 
success. 

Those who are just starting out on their 
life tasks may worthily study what has 
been done by others who have met and 
conquered the conditions that faced them. 
Fixed principles, good health, alertness, 
perseverance, endurance, are the main 
essentials, humanly speaking. 

[i8] 


BUSINESS AND SUCCESS 


Work seldom kills a man, but worry does 
it. Worry is the rust that spoils the knife- 
blade. 

Success and wealth often put people to 
sleep, whereas they should quicken their 
diligence. 

A large part of every man’s future has in 
it the figure of a tremendous, but success¬ 
ful conflict. 

There is hardly any man that is able to 
take his own measure as to his possibilities 
until he experiments with himself. 

The barnacles of listlessness, lagging, for¬ 
getfulness, hasty words, carelessness in 
storekeeping, are little weeds that slack 
up our sailing. 

It is a well-known fact that a piece of 
machinery wastes faster standing still than 
when it is rightly worked. The earth is 
not the Creator’s showroom, it is His 
workshop. 

[ 19] 


MAXIMS 


Trust the younger men. Give them a fair 
chance. 

I never felt that I had any hard work, I 
’ just felt that I had work that was worth 
doing, and kept at it, and kept on. I never 
stop until the work is done. 

Failures are not fatal unless we go to sleep 
with them. Edison, Marconi, Cyrus W. 
Field, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, 
had their failures, but each of them kept on 
undaunted until he ‘^won out.’’ 

Beginnings are often small and the progress 
slow, but the one who studies and strives, 
who never leaves off his efforts, is sure to 
be an overcomer. Give him time and 
encouragement and he will get there. 

A human being must not be thought of as 
an automatic machine. We must consider 
one another, and, so far as in us lies, add to 
the good feeling of all who labor with us. 
It can be done, and we must all find the 
way. 

[20] 


BUSINESS AND SUCCESS 


Having fixed principles and standing true 
to yourself is to be a winner. 

Choose carefully your vocation, grip it hard 
and climb from the foot of your class to the 
top. 

There are no locks on the doors of wisdom, 
knowledge, honest enterprise and oppor¬ 
tunity. 

If we could only make our hands move as 
actively as our tongues, what wonders we 
could accomplish! 

It seems to me that a tremendous responsi¬ 
bility rests upon employers in their duty to 
their painstaking employes who live their 
lives year in and year out under the same 
roof with them. 

To get into the right place in the world 
and to work out from that place in tune 
with the biggest and finest things, for the 
mutual benefit of yourself and others, is 
well worth any one’s best endeavors. 

[2ll 


MAXIMS 


I have always had a broom in my hand. 

No human being can create a great thing 
suddenly. 

It requires more brains to be a merchant 
than it used to. 

One ought to leave some kind of mark after 
fifty years to make it. 

A job of any kind, slighted, stands as a 
witness against the man who did it. 

Life has no rehearsal days in it. Each day 
must be filled up with its appointed work. 

Somebody must have a vision and put years 
of strength and power back of it to shape 
things toward the ideal. 

Originality, personality, initiative and in¬ 
vention of methods and easement of mer¬ 
cantile life are intangible influences, but 
they exist and are felt, though they may 
not always be definable in words. 

[ 22 ] 


BUSINESS AND SUCCESS 


Each year is a step of progress. 

New goods are better than bargains. 

Progress is the result of self-developm*ent. 

“Superiority’’ should be the daily watch¬ 
word. 

The light is always shining on a vision of a 
loftier commercial plane. 

A great ship or a great store must just go 
on and do great things, and get bigger by 
good service, and never too big to correct its 
faults. 

We are not the mere automata of business. 
We are men and women reaching out hand 
and heart to make life easier and to make 
the world happier. 

Business is not a matter of machinery; it 
is not a great granite building; it is not 
iron, steel and rock; it is the human force 
that is in it; it is the man. 

[23] 


MAXIMS 


We must be careful not to let our arms 
hang down. 

As far back as the histories go, considerable 
commerce seems to have been going on. 

Fundamental things are the knowledge of 
our work, quality of our work, and the love 
of our work. 

Each time that a woman bakes gingerbread 
it ought to be a better gingerbread than the 
one that came out of the oven the time 
before. 

A man may own a farm and yet go to the 
poorhouse, if he does not prepare his land 
for planting and then do the actual 
planting. 

You cannot charge more than other people 
for the same thing; but you can do better 
storekeeping, you can have different and 
better stocks, and you can see that the 
thing is better done; and the growth will 
be magnificent. 

[ 24] 


BUSINESS AND SUCCESS 
Nothing comes merely by thinking about it. 

It is not possible for any man to have all 
the good ideas. 

Learn to know that every day more is 
expected of you. 

Any man that is afraid of being supplanted 
ought to be supplanted. 

The great centers of trade are nurseries of 
science, art and invention. 

We must remember that the very best of us 
have made many mistakes*. 

Competition will pound us hard, but let us 
see who can pound hardest. 

Put yourself close to your work, bear hard 
upon it, stay by it, and get it done. 

The men who are perfectly satisfied with 
what they are doing for me are not the men 
I want. 


[' 25 ] 


MAXIMS 


Few things live to honor and usefulness 
wholly upon their ancestry. 

Dumb power will make the speed, but it 
takes brains to make the safety. 

Always reason up if you wish to reach the 
higher levels of vision and strength. 

Through all these years I have just kept 
my heart close to the heart of the business. 

The strength of men and stores and gov¬ 
ernment must be in adherence to principles. 

To lack a right estimate of the value of 
minutes, is to spend much of our lives out 
of breath. 

The thinking man who is true to his duty 
hour by hour is the man for whom there is 
always a place. 

The world is a kind of blacksmith shop with 
anvils in it where some with strong arms 
must swing heavy hammers. 

[26] 


BUSINESS AND SUCCESS 
We shall improve every day and go ahead. 

We build strong and true from the bot¬ 
tom up. 

There is always ample room for all who do 
their work well. 

Step forward with a clear head and use 
your will power early in the morning. 

That the way to keep happy is to keep 
busy at the work we love, is the belief of 
us all. 

Capital, with its manifold possibilities for 
good, in itself becomes an agency of wrong 
and calamity when harnessed with favored 
legislation. 

Neither money, praise, flattery nor a col¬ 
lege education is sufficient to make a mer¬ 
chant. To keep a store just right is a 
branch of the sciences. Business is a 
science that cannot be bought, stolen or 
inherited. 


[27] 


MAXIMS 


Eternal vigilance is the price of success¬ 
ful storekeeping, banking, navigation and 
farming. 

It is a rare satisfaction to benefit humanity 
through the trivial details of routine and 
inventive work. 

At first sight there does not seem to be 
much heroism or romance in the life of a 
merchant, but commerce has quickened 
the faculties of man. 

It is fair to say that in the last half-century 
probably no greater advance has been made 
in any direction of civilization than in the 
science and system of mercantile business. 

The paramount purpose of the Founder of 
this business was from the first to stop the 
down-grade and fakir-like practices of the 
mercantile world of fifty years ago, and not 
only help to save the mercantile profession 
from lowering its flag, but raise it from the 
dust as high as any of the learned profes¬ 
sions and occupations. 

[28] 


BUSINESS AND SUCCESS 
All can help, but none shall hinder. 

Whatever is well planted will grow if it 
has proper care. 

Any one that easily gets tired must not 
take up with storekeeping. 

It is just as easy to keep a ‘‘be at home” 
house, a neighborly house, as it is to keep 
a clean house, a cheerful house, or an 
orderly, comfortable house. 

Neither the first thought nor the first 
impression is always right. One must 
walk all around a thing to see it from every 
angle, to make the best decision. 

There are times when strength and safety 
come by standing still, be it ever so hard 
for men of energy and men of enthusiasm 
to do so. Rushing hither and thither in 
uncertainty is often giving play to our 
desire to be doing something, rather than 
the exercise of depth and calmness of 
judgment. 

[29] 


MAXIMS 

Let us not for an instant walk backward. 

No man can make horseshoes with gossip. 

It is hard to carry a full cup with a steady 
hand. 

Not every one can swim that puts on a 
bathing suit. 

In no part of the world can any one get 
something for nothing. 

To stand still in storekeeping is impossible, 
except to decay, in these days. 

We would rather not make a sale than 
make one for the buyer to regret. 

Do you think any vast business like this 
could be as fresh as the haul of fresh fish 
that the daybreak fisherman lands every 
morning on the ocean shore, if there were 
not hundreds of hands spreading their nets 
and making the hauls of boatloads every 
day? 


[30] 


BUSINESS AND SUCCESS 
Why not get inspirations when you can ? 

Take the first road to the right and do 
something. 

Most things that are well done are done 
with exactness. 

Trading in goods leads directly to the 
exchange of ideas. 

America is a roomy place for the straight¬ 
forward thorough-goer. 

The American merchant should do his 
repenting before he puts off his wares upon 
his customers. 

A little more effort on the part of everybody 
to make the times better, and better times 
will surely come along. 

I would not have been prepared to build 
this large store when I did, if I had not 
saved two and a half million dollars little 
by little. 

[31] 


MAXIMS 


Any one can run a short race and an easy 
one. 

Time is a galloping racehorse which never 
pauses; it urges swift diligence. 

Life will not be unfair with us; for duties 
well done there are songs along the way. 

A merchant is truly a dealer in futures, 
because his supplies come from every part 
of the globe. 

The tendency to believe that everything is 
dark and downward is a sign of ill health 
or weakening brain. 

There are thousands who fall just a little 
short of great success by small careless¬ 
nesses and forgetfulnesses. 

No business organization can rise higher 
than its leader and owner, constantly in 
the field, directing each day’s plans and 
work. Proxies are not responsible or equal 
to it. 

I32I 


\ 


BUSINESS AND SUCCESS 


Do not start out with inflated ideas of your 
own ability and worth. 

Let no one make the road harder by mag¬ 
nifying difficulties and making the worst 
of everything. 

‘‘The sleep of the laboring man is sweet” 
because with an honest heart he has done 
a good day’s work. 

Thoroughly great men are only men, but 
they do thoroughly what they do, whether 
it be small or great things. 

Obstacles are not infrequently turned to 
good account, like the stiff* winds that 
force the draughts in the furnace of the 
steamships and fill the sails of the barques 
and brigs on the ocean. 

Whoever lives a life of nothingness, even 
with wealth, or without it, is to be pitied. 
Just a real, fine harvest you can carry home 
out of the summer of your life, or no har¬ 
vest at all, as you determine yourself. 

[33 ] 


MAXIMS 


Customers have no short memories. 

True business is always constructive. 

To love to work and have fifty years in 
active business, is a great privilege. 

A man’s true estate and wealth is not in 
houses, railroad bonds, and the like; it is 
in himself. 

To make the best of the conditions is a 
common call, and if all pull together we 
can outride the storm. 

Commerce is not a speculation—it is the 
very life-blood that pulsates through every 
fibre of the healthy body politic. 

Mercantile business can never be carried 
on by tools and machinery. Its organiza¬ 
tion and administration require human 
beings—people who have power to do 
things, who have knowledge that can come 
only by education and, with the education, 
inspiration. 

[34] 


BUSINESS AND SUCCESS 


Winners must be workers. 

Mutuality” and ‘‘Make good,” must be 
our motto. 

Knocking steadily at the door of opportu¬ 
nity will surely open it to success. 

I think that posterity will write the history, 
the story of the labors, the triumphs, the 
genius, of our simple, everyday, earnest 
work for a principle. 

Toil and fill your place and earn what you 
get, and try to be worth more than you 
earn—something bigger than you earn— 
something bigger and greater, not for your¬ 
self alone, but for the city. 

A store is never really prepared to serve the 
public well by show windows and adroit 
advertising. Somebody who knows mer¬ 
chandise and knows who are its best makers 
must go far distances, and through wars 
and rumors of wars, and have courage and 
cash to get it home and ready for use. 

[35] 


MAXIMS 


Nothing but perfect satisfaction ever seals 
a sale. 

What’s the use of a plan if we do not 
work it? 

I will not suffer myself to say any aggran¬ 
dizing words. 

The fact is, the old adage is true—that the 
more people do, the more they are able 
to do. 

An unhealthy, stagnant pool of water isn’t 
half as hurtful to a neighborhood as a stag¬ 
nant man. 

A customer has the right to some guaran¬ 
tee that his purchase shall prove exactly as 
represented. 

I believe that many of us have esteemed it 
an honor to be associated with a business 
that builds not only its character, but is 
building the character of the business of the 
world. 


[36] 



BUSINESS AND SUCCESS 


They shall grow who believe they can. 

Whatever has been good in the past, let us 
have some more of to-morrow. 

What is going on in the public mind is 
always to be considered seriously and 
respectfully. 

It is good to have a systematic way of doing 
things, but it is more important to be sure 
that you do them. 

Every man may find some good kind of 
opportunity in front of him if he is in 
earnest to avail himself of it. 

It is plain to be seen that others besides 
ourselves have discovered there are new 
sceneries moving upon the stage of com¬ 
mercial life. 

Business men are drudges. When they 
called me at half-past six this morning I 
wanted another hour, and it was very hard 
to just push out. 


[37] 


MAXIMS 


It is best for a man to grow where he is 
planted. 

Let us spend our time on something to 
produce. 

Trying to fool the people is only misleading 
yourself. 

Learn to tell the difference between activity 
and work. 

Form your own jugdment and buy of who¬ 
ever serves you best. 

Self-respecting labor begets a pride of inde¬ 
pendence: it awakens the senses to what is 
in the future of hope and a realization of 
what a man can do. 

Encourage even a greenhorn when he comes 
with a suggestion, even if it is a poor sug¬ 
gestion. Give him the real reason why you 
can’t accept his ideas. You will make him 
feel better, and he will come again. Give 
consideration and get co-operation. 

[38] 


BUSINESS AND SUCCESS 


People don’t like ‘^just as good” things. 

We can find a dozen excuses: what we 
want is a better way. 

It is easier to sell goods that are going up 
than goods that are going down. 

It is a fact that old employes lose much 
time fighting against new methods. 

It is well for us to be still a little while and 
think whether we are equal to the things 
we have got to do. 

A man who believes he can stand still on 
any height he may have risen to, doesn’t 
understand the situation. 

A man can’t force himself all day or all his 
life at the same pace. He will have to slow 
down occasionally; but if he hasn’t the 
spirit and enthusiasm always growing, then 
it is safe to say that he is the full size of 
the tub he is in, and there will be no more 
growth. 


[39] 


MAXIMS 


New beginnings are the soul of persever¬ 
ance. 

A well-conducted business is a public 
benefit. 

This great business is to benefit all, serve 
all, protect all. 

Personal notoriety, sensationalism and bun¬ 
combe are not useful advertising. 

We steadfastly affirm certain principles of 
business procedure to which we will adhere 
in the future as in the past, believing that 
we are serving the public by always going 
forward. 

The sacred obligations of our homes, the 
requirements of education, the cultivation 
of special mental gifts, the claims of philan¬ 
thropy and religion, and the discharge of 
the citizen’s duty in bearing a fair share 
of taxation and citizenship, demand that 
every man and woman must work and do 
his or her part in one way or another. 

[40] 


BUSINESS AND SUCCESS 


Everything has to bear a test. 

We are sure of our rightness so far: now let 
us go ahead. 

To get an5rwhere one must cut loose and 
actually start. 

A good store is something more than a trap 
to catch a customer in. 

Keep step in the march of progress. Inflex¬ 
ibly, it must be step on or step out. 

They who deplete their work by creating 
losses instead of profits, have no future in 
business anywhere. 

The aim and purpose of the business must 
always be that as the business rises it 
must lift every worker with it. 

There is not enough stuff* in any of us to 
divide up into many parts. We are mer¬ 
chants plain and simple, and all our time 
and labor are concentrated upon it. 

[41] 


MAXIMS 


A man strives most for what he desires. 

Whoever can create a day’s work for a man, 
helps his family. 

We are not yet done discovering better 
ways to do business. 

To begin again and begin again, is what 
the storekeeper has to do every day. ’ 

If the past one hundred years has done 
nothing to ameliorate war, it has done 
much to civilize commerce. 

The man who lets himself go gadding loose 
and idle may allow his head and hands to 
be so long out of commission that when 
necessity demands labor he may find him¬ 
self totally disabled. 

A man in want who is big enough to take 
a little job and its little pay when he can¬ 
not find a job of his former size, is the 
man who will surely find work if he will 
keep on his legs for it. 

[42] 


BUSINESS AND SUCCESS 


We are never satisfied with old stock 
phrases, or old stock methods, or old stock 
history. 

The best start for a good day’s work is to 
be up and at it with the first hours of the 
morning. 

Merchandise must have integrity, and so 
must the merchant when he speaks of the 
goods and fixes the price. 

The man who can do one thing well and 
unfailingly, even if what he does is only to 
open a door for visitors, is a better helper 
to the world than the man who does many 
things poorly. 

This business was not a gift or an inherit¬ 
ance from rich ancestors. Its early days 
were days of little money, large ambitions, 
loads of ideas, and untiring work. The 
whole story is told in the two words. Ambi¬ 
tion and Work. Necessity was the teacher, 
and Labor was the discipline whereby we 
learned our lessons and prospered. 

[43] 


MAXIMS 


Confidence! Confidence! Confidence! That 
is your capital. 

You want first of all to have confidence in 
what you are selling. 

To be thoroughly engrossed in a pursuit is 
the only way to succeed in it. 

Business, to my mind, is the means to 
exchange knowledge, labor or skill for a 
living. 

I am not sure that it is possible for me to 
define the spirit, the unseen part, of a 
living force. 

A man should have a clear vision of his 
vocation, and manfully and planfully—not 
playfully—^work it out. 

Let nothing sag or fall. Hold fast all we 
have wrought into the system, and add to 
it out of the ever-ripening experience; and 
by all means see to it that no one fails to 
keep step in the march of progress. 

[44I 


BUSINESS AND SUCCESS 
We have too many faults to be boastful. 

We are never satisfied with less than sure 
and full service. 

It is a rare gift to know how to spend 
money to the best advantage. 

It is of great importance in business to be 
just right, as well as right just. 

Business must rest on the uncrumbling 
foundation of confidence in one another— 
strength in all around, and justice in every 
part! 

I have tried to get as much land as I could 
and build the greatest building I could, but 
I have always been willing that every other 
man should do the same. 

A business life gives a chance to every one 
to apply his ability and to become distin¬ 
guished to some good degree. It is the 
idler, the indolent and the shiftless that 
never get distinction. 

[4S] 


MAXIMS 


Yesterday’s best will not be accepted for 
to-day. 

I like to stand on my feet; it makes me lazy 
to sit down. 

There may be an economy of time and 
money that is an extravagance. 

Better not make a sale than make a dis¬ 
appointment—better not make it! 

If we could only cut away the dead wood 
of life, the wastages of time and profitless 
engagements! 

If it were not for advertising, the people 
would have to use much more time and 
labor in getting about to be informed of 
the latest. 

This business created a necessity for adver¬ 
tising that obliged others to advertise, and 
enabled the newspapers to double and 
treble their pages and reduce their prices 
to the people. 


[46] 


BUSINESS AND SUCCESS 
All our work is easy if we love it. 

It is only incapacity that brings defeat. 

If we are all of one mind, we can hold the 
fort. 

Success we get without God doesn’t count 
up very much. 

Saying ^‘We couldn’t help it,” is no way to 
meet a situation. 

In the face of difficult conditions we ought 
to be very masterful. 

Our years are all well-built towers of vic¬ 
tories and helpfulness. 

Any child can bemoan conditions, but its 
thought will turn defeat into success. 

The fact that you [the older employes] 
have been with me so long means that I 
must have deserved well of you; and I 
feel that you deserve well of me. 

[47] 


MAXIMS 


Good competition is valuable to a merchant. 

Count no profit in goods until the goods 
are sold. 

The real merchant is the man who sees his 
goods sold. 

Who can name the worth of goods that 
nobody wants ? 

Let’s have more of the muscles of energy 
and eagerness of baseball in business. 

Many untoward happenings may be called 
accidents; but what are we here for if not 
to save ourselves from accidents.? 

There is no business in simply keeping 
goods; it is in getting goods and selling 
them, and getting more goods and selling 
them. Keeping store with old goods in 
hope they will sometimes sell, is like keep¬ 
ing a hospital to nurse a lot of rag babies 
that you think might come to life some day 
and sneeze and smile at you. 

[48] 


BUSINESS AND SUCCESS 

Ever3rthing has to have a beginning. 

It is easy to tell what a store is like from 
trifles. 

A merchant is, after all, only a purchasing 
agent for his patrons. 

There are times when each man has to 
steer from his individual port. 

Preparedness to-day not only is the slogan 
of the nation, but it is the keyword of our 
storekeeping. 

Every fault of a store or of a home is trace¬ 
able back to an individual who does not do 
his or her part right. 

The final determination must not be based 
upon the plow and harrow, but upon what 
the harvest is. The master-farmer, who 
raises the best com and adds most to the 
common good, as he inevitably must, is 
still the worthy farmer, no matter what 
the tools are. 


[49] 


MAXIMS 


Everything that is done well is hard work. 

Whatever benefits our patrons benefits us. 

To-day’s plans and performances make the 
only life that is vital. 

A man need not be a human yardstick 
because he is in business. 

There is something going on in this busi¬ 
ness greater than the profit-and-loss 
account. 

The healthiest and happiest people in the 
world are those privileged to work a full 
business day. 

It is not the size or age of a store, or its 
advertising, that counts, but the real thing 
narrows down to: Is it alive all over? 

I 

Wealth can no more be created safely, and 
permanently held, by the mere shuffling of 
securities, than character can be created by 
shuffling cards. 

• [50] 


BUSINESS AND SUCCESS 


Money is not the only profit of the kind of 
business we are working at. 

Every man may find some kind of oppor¬ 
tunity in front of him if he is in earnest to 
avail himself of it. 

You cannot pound out of nature or a com¬ 
munity benefits beyond the fair, square, 
equivalent you give, except at some future 
penalty. 

No man can go to prosperity over the 
Bridge of Business without paying a toll 
coin stamped Truth and Probity, and being 
a genuinely hard and thorough worker. 

I am willing to confess to you that I have 
endeavored to make a boy’s dream a tangi¬ 
ble reality; and, with unconquered pur¬ 
pose, I have steadily followed the North 
Star that I saw in the sky from the begin¬ 
ning, keeping it ahead of me always, and 
taking every kind of encouragement as 
simply a starting-post for some greater 
achievement. 


[51] 


MAXIMS 


We have to add play to our work. 

Past achievements are achievements past. 

Each day gives opportunity for distinguish¬ 
ing service. 

Every stone in this store somebody had to 
quarry out. 

The better we do, the more ambitious we 
are to do better. 

There is such a thing as real happiness in 
business and a real duty in happiness. 

The one thousand and sixty-nine vocations 
in which men and women engage are one 
thousand and sixty-nine royal roads to 
greatness. 

You’ve got to have a lot of knowledge, 
strength and skill, as forces backed up 
behind and above you, to cut through 
things in this world, whether it be to run 
a mill, a ship, or a store. 

[52] 


BUSINESS AND SUCCESS 
Some men have to win—they just have to! 

On every road there is some young man 
coming on. 

One may walk over the highest mountain, 
one step at a time. 

We want men who can see all around and 
take a step forward. 

A man often lives best in his sons that fol¬ 
low him and do better than he has done. 

Every man and woman are capable of mak¬ 
ing a discovery that may be important and 
useful to the world. 

Each new achievement is but a point to 
encamp at for one night only—the next 
morning to wake early and climb. 

A misplaced light on the shore has led to 
many a shipwreck. It is equally fatal to a 
storekeeper if his advertising chief handles 
a light that misleads. 

[53] 


MAXIMS 


To arrive rather than begin is the real 
thing. 

Keep up the old standards, and day by day 
raise them higher. 

I think we have tried to do our best, but 
the best is yet to come. 

To me always the farmers and gardeners 
of the earth are the real aristocrats. 

You and I have simply found some work to 
do, and we have borne hard upon it. 

The broader a man’s pattern, the more will 
he have it in his power to gain success. 

Every great undertaking is made up of the 
sum of past endeavors, plus ambition and 
, the new visions. 

This business is a clock that goes. It 
marks time accurately for service. As each 
hour strikes, it wants to be remembered 
for what it can do to benefit the world. 

[54] 


BUSINESS AND SUCCESS 
We take inspirations from every storm. 

When the people pay more, they get more 
for their money. 

Mere palaver in print is worse than noth¬ 
ing, for it may be misleading. 

It is difficult to keep the business tracks 
clear of business grasshoppers. 

Fifty years in the life of a merchant ought 
to be worth something to a great city. 

Mr. Edison says idleness is sickness: what 
does he know about it ? He never indulged 
in it. 

The backbone of the Irishman's or Scotch¬ 
man’s integrity is spun into the goods he 
makes. 

The emptiest man and the emptiest store 
are most talkative. Almost any one can 
blow a bubble, but it is only a bubble 
after all. 

[ 55 ] 


MAXIMS 


A jaded body is not usually the inventor 
of ideas. 

It is the quality that gives the true 
measure. 

The victory is always surer to those who 
stand up, whatever be the wind or weather. 

‘‘Great oaks from little acorns grow,” but 
generally it is left to somebody to find the 
acorns and plant them. 

Times as well as winds change, and busi¬ 
ness ways must be improved or everything 
gets on the down grade. 

To allow yourself or your opportunity to 
rust out is deplorable, and sometimes dan¬ 
gerous to others. A rusty man is of as 
much use as a rusty key. 

To get anywhere worth while, one must 
take a ticket of preparation, and get on the 
tracks of heart-effort and hammer and 
tongs, thick and thin endeavor. 

[S6] 


BUSINESS AND SUCCESS 


Ideas and ideals really become the founda¬ 
tion of the main track of life. 

Take the safe rather than the swift way in 
trade as well as in other navigations. 

The prizes of this world are placed where 
men can get them only by their own great 
development. 

You cannot fool the people: you cannot 
make them believe an advertisement when 
it doesn’t ring true. 

I feel a terrible responsibility for having 
created this business if I cannot find the 
captains to keep it going. 

Earnestness, intellect, whole-heartedness 
and steady labor—this is industry, andjn 
time will take all the prizes. 

The earth is a vast magazine or materiais; 
and man is the artisan placed in the world 
to collect, subdue and form them for their 
proper use, 

[57] 


MAXIMS 


Nobody ever works well whose salary is 
reduced. 

I have no recollection of ever having been 
discouraged. 

The plodding side and the heroic side run 
close together. 

The spirit of indifference and laxity is fear¬ 
fully contagious. 

Man’s ability to labor is a growth, and 
learning is earning. 

You can never ride on the wave that came 
in and went out yesterday. 

There is a lack of comprehension that busi¬ 
ness grows only by faithfulness. 

A good business should be organized in 
such a way that it can be independent of 
any man in it. 

Malice and meanness and misrepresenta¬ 
tion will not deter me—I shall “turn the 
other cheek” when one is cut too deep. 

[58] 



BUSINESS AND SUCCESS 


Find a way to overcome things. 

Mere cheapness does not denote bargains. 

The nearest door to us is the one for us to 
get into. 

Overcome a hard job, overcome a difficult 
and discouraging job; fight, fight, fight, 
never stop! 

We have a great business, we have a place 
to do it in, and I cannot stand for men who 
are not equal to their duties in it. 

Women who go about talking so much 
about the stores and the hard-worked sales¬ 
people, would do better to look a little into 
their own affairs and not keep their coach¬ 
men out until two o’clock in the morning. 

Whoever keeps on looking upward will 
think upward, and courage like an eagle 
mounteth with the occasion. Let him who 
sees afar make quick use of the moment, 
and he shall be crowned the genius of 
wisdom. 

[59] 


CHARACTER-BUILDING 


F ew lives go far without some kind of 
hard battle. 

Nothing tells so quickly what we are our¬ 
selves as what we say of others. 

Whoever allows himself to get out of 
patience, comes often to the falling-olF 
place before he is aware of it. 

I cannot hold other people’s tongues, and it 
has taken me a long time to get control of 
my own tongue. But it can be done, and 
it is well worth while. If for no other 
reason, it saves a lot of time! 

If in your inner thoughts you are think¬ 
ing of doing something you would not 
like others to know about, be sure to drop 
it, and resolve not to do it. You have to 
live with yourself, and your bad deeds will 
be sure to flock around you some time in 
life’s later hours and give you unhappiness. 

[6o] 


CHARACTER-BUILDING 
Only dead fish float with the tide. 

No aim, or a low aim, is next door to a 
crime. 

Our conduct is only a sample of our 
thoughts. 

I 

None of us can live a full and useful life 
and be wholly absorbed in himself. 

We get strong by discipline, and we grow 
by using our strength upon a fixed purpose. 

To every man there comes a day when he 
must separate himself from others and act 
alone. 

It is better to wear patched shoes and pay 
as you go, than to be in debt, wearing 
patent leathers and silken gowns. 

You mend your automobile on the spot 
when something breaks. Don’t let your 
life be going on with something crippled 
in it. 


[6i] 


MAXIMS 


Adversity is not the worst thing that can 
happen to us. 

Almost every one knows when he is stifling 
conscience, and it is never prudent or safe 
to do it. 

Is it not true that to many of us sunsets 
are given, beyond our own vision if we do 
not stop long enough to catch the glory 
and the meaning of the good-night mes¬ 
sage of the sky ? 

Were we to take off* the outer shell or husks 
that time, disposition and custom have 
gradually moulded upon us, how ready 
would we be to rebuild our lives without 
the worthless things we have in one way or 
another built into them! 

Whoever is able to keep in mind his weak 
points, and gradually learn to avoid them, 
will in course of time master himself and 
be more valuable than the man who mis¬ 
steps himself and has only to say, for¬ 
got,” as if that were a sufficient excuse. 

[62] 


CHARACTER-BUILDING 
Exaggeration is a second cousin to falsehood. 

If the new day brings difficult things to do, 
take up first the hardest or more disagree¬ 
able. With that out of the way, all the 
others seem easier. 

It is a delusion to believe in luck days and 
spend life waiting for something to turn 
up, while you do not even keep one eye 
open for the opportunities passing along. 

Even adversity and accident are often the 
best bath a lazy man can fall into to wake 
him up to use his dormant powers. Idle¬ 
ness is in the main a daily drizzle of dis¬ 
content and unhealthiness. 

To dream away our days and fool away 
our time is to become callous to the 
solemn realities around us. The culti¬ 
vated, wealthy people, much as we honor 
and enjoy them, can do without us, but 
think of the multitudes below you that 
need you, to whom you might become an 
angel! 


[63] 


MAXIMS 


Pack your troubles in the smallest bag 
you have. 

When any of us pass beyond the bounds 
of moderation in the conduct of our affairs, 
somebody will be hurt. 

Lots of people have never developed their 
personality; they simply trudge and drudge 
along as if they were but lead pencils, a 
dozen in a box and exactly alike. 

Two weeks in the school of disappointment 
will often teach a man the deceits and 
tricks of the world far beyond anything 
he ever knew, and be of service all his life 
in steering him away from the shoals of 
misfortune. 

That man who forms a purpose which he 
knows to be right, and then moves forward 
to accomplish it without inquiring where 
it will land him as an individual, and with¬ 
out caring what the immediate conse¬ 
quences to himself will be, is the manliest 
of manly men. 


[641 


CHARACTER-BUILDING 


The regret for a lost opportunity lasts a 
long time. 

Stop looking at or listening to your neigh¬ 
bors; just focus all your mind, heart and 
strength to go after one man—conquer and 
control yourself. 

Both good and bad fortune are valuable in 
showing us ourselves. A man that never 
makes any mistakes loses much that it 
would do him good to know. 

To be honored for one’s forefathers is to 
inherit the greatest of treasures; but it is 
also of some consequence to leave an 
untarnished and worthy record of honor 
for those who follow us. 

Right and wrong are too far apart to sleep 
in the same bed or to walk down the street 
together. What is wrong is never any¬ 
thing else but wrong. If a practice has to 
be glossed over or vociferously defended, it 
is something you had better take no risks 
with. 


[65] 


MAXIMS 


There is no greater deception than self- 
deception. 

No one has a right to rob his son or 
daughter of a noble and virtuous example. 

Inaction is thought by many persons to 
be carefulness when it is simply procras¬ 
tination. 

Our fears have often disappeared when we 
were not looking, after we turned around 
and entered upon the day’s work. 

Every man is like an empty bottle and can 
drink what he chooses. There are certain 
things about us that are bound to put us 
down if we haven’t our wits about us to 
stop it. 

When a man dislikes what he has made of 
himself, who but himself can make the 
changes necessary to rebuild what is unsat¬ 
isfactory and displeasing? He does not 
need to talk about it, and no one but him¬ 
self can do the job. 

[66] 


CHARACTER-BUILDING 


Slumberers very seldom make history. 

The burdens of life minimize when we face 
them manfully. 

People do observe us and make up their 
mind about us from the little things we do 
and say. 

The finest thing in the world is to know 
how to belong to oneself, and not to be 
tossed about by the winds, doctrines and 
half-baked opinions which are in the air. 

Almost every year has its silent battle¬ 
fields, where self-renouncing, faithful sons, 
daughters, kinsfolk, become heroes by their 
sacrifices and devotion to the lonely and 
suffering. 

There is a superiority obtainable for every 
heroic man or woman who will exert him 
or herself to do so, and it is highly honor¬ 
able and worth while to pay the price for 
it by application, self-control and earnest 
endeavor. Take the heroic road. 

[67] 


MAXIMS 


No man or woman is safe without lofty 
ideals. 

Looking on the bright side and doing one’s 
best is half of life’s battle. 

Impatience, procrastination and idleness 
are the chief causes of drifting upon the 
quicksands instead of landing in the snug 
harbor. 

Something is the matter with the main¬ 
spring of the life of a man or woman, old 
or young, if there is no ambition in the 
mind or heart. 

Almost every person has something to do 
which he neglects. To break one’s self of 
that habit, simple and small as it may be, 
might be the turning-point to success. 

When you are in the right you can afford to 
keep your temper, and when you are in the 
wrong you cannot afford to lose it and allow 
all your friends to see you make a fool of 
yourself. 


[68] 


CHARAGTER-BUILDING 


Right thinking is the best thing we can do 
for ourselves and others. 

No other loss counts up so heavily as that 
of time wasted upon nothingness. 

Save all you can of the white-heartedness 
that your mother gave you, and add some¬ 
thing to it, if possible. 

Any talent or Nature’s gift that sticks to 
the recipient’s fingers is downright robbery 
of the poorer public, for whose needs it 
it was given. 

There’s no such thing as failure to a deter¬ 
mined, unforgetting, unneglectful, soldier¬ 
like man or woman, who battles till the 
fight is won, be it to get an education or a 
position. 

There are days and days together, all about 
the same as they come and go, and, then 
there comes along a day or a time in which 
is condensed almost a lifetime, calling out 
all the real stuff of which we are made. 

[69] 


MAXIMS 


Continuous employment is a safeguard 
from temptation. 

A man with a bad temper is better than a 
man with no temper at all. 

It is a pity to be only sensible about ordi¬ 
nary affairs and next-door to insanity about 
higher concerns. 

Anybody, old or young, that cuts the cor¬ 
ners off truth in his talk or practices, is, 
sooner or later, the loser by it. 

Whatever one’s gift is, let him apply him¬ 
self to developing that one gift, and not 
flit and flirt about from one thing to 
another. Be a whole man in some partic¬ 
ular way. 

The wind in a man’s face sometimes makes 
him wise. One trouble teaches him to 
bear another, and he is better prepared 
to meet the sudden storms of life and to 
guide his little boat safely onward if he 
has once had an experience of a hurricane. 

[70] 


CHARACTER-BUILDING 


Every man, by his principles and conduct, 
makes his own step-ladder. 

It is not the thing that we resolve to do 
that counts, for a moment’s indecision may 
rob us of the opportunity. 

To prefer death to dishonor is a finer thing 
than life. The man who can stand to his 
convictions is great in any age. 

In cases of doubt or perplexity as to what 
is right or what is best, do not make any 
mistake: always reason up to the most 
honorable standards. 

To live the fullest life possible must be our 
first endeavor. Many men and women are 
invisibly small because they play with toys 
all the days of their lives. 

There is something in human nature that 
always responds to manly courage. There 
are too many men who build fences around 
themselves and do nothing for fear of mak¬ 
ing mistakes. 

[71 ] 


MAXIMS 


Fault-mending is infinitely better than 
fault-finding. 

There is a point to stop at, but it is not 
until your fair duty is done. 

Compound your common sense, conscience 
and strength, and make it count. 

Each hour of the day brings on its back a 
message of cheer and a fagot of duty. 

A man is not doing much until the cause 
he works for possesses all there is of him. 

Impatience is a stumbling horse and liable 
to injure us whenever we ride or drive it. 

A man cannot afford to be lenient with 
himself, though he be lenient with all 
others. 

A great man is not tied to his own opinions, 
his hates, his preferences, or his prejudices, 
but is big enough to weigh existing circum¬ 
stances and passing events. 

[72] 


CHARACTER-BUILDING 


A drunkard is a moral suicide. 

Every life has its high moments. 

One must ballast the soul with patience. 

Time wasted is part of your life thrown 
away. 

The worst thing a man can do is to hide 
his mistakes. 

Only ourselves can come short of our 
expectations. 

Providence will favor the man who taxes 
himself to the uttermost. 

The man who does not learn to give early 
in life is generally stingy to the end. 

It is a great pity to be in any position 
where you cannot feel perfectly genuine. 

It is a poor oversight to leave God out of 
our calculations. 


[73] 


MAXIMS 


Being right and doing right is the secret of 
feeling right. 

It is not enough to merely have an ideal. 
You must begin to do. 

Study to be unhurried, unflurried, and 
“not easily provoked.” 

To go out into other lives creates an ever- 
widening circle of benefactions. 

No man can dream character into himself. 
He must hammer and forge himself into a 
man. 

We cannot live upon the reputation of the 
past—it is the character that is within us, 
and that we live out, that has to make its 
mark as the days go by. 

Resolutely doing the same thing rightly is 
not always easy, but it is great. It devel¬ 
ops patience, and “practice makes perfect.” 
There are world-records to be broken in 
every calling. 


[74] 


CHARACTER-BUILDING 


Let us make our own happiness by hard, 
hopeful work. 

If you sow neglect or haste, it is likely 
somebody will reap regrets. 

Let’s try to use our faculties to make every¬ 
thing bright wherever we stand. 

Not to be afraid is something, but courage 
to go straight on is infinitely more. 

Courtesy cannot be borrowed like snow 
shovels—you must have some of your own. 

Unpunctuality is a thing that grows upon 
a man or a woman, and it is thoughtless 
and unnecessary. 

To be a real man, big or little, or a real 
woman, old or young—good and true—is to 
be the finest thing on earth. 

There is truly such a thing as keeping the 
heart unwrinkled. It is by being hopeful, 
cheerful, kindly, reverent and thankful. 

[75] 


MAXIMS 


One has often to pass through ordeals to 
rise to ideals. 

Everyone honors the man who fulfils a 
duty at all hazards. 

The worst kind of lying is making promises 
that you cannot fulfil. • 

Be happy with what you have, and better 
things will come along. 

Manners neglected in small things often 
decide for or against us. 

Almost every path leads straight ahead to 
a worthy goal, and the heart that beats 
high with courage is sure to win. 

An epitaph of some kind is inevitable to 
all, be it spoken or printed in type or 
marble. It is governed, however, by the 
Dial on the Face of the Life Clock; and 
whether the clock strikes the hours truly 
or falsely, depends on the right Key and 
careful winding up at the right time. 

[76] 


CHARACTER-BUILDING 


The sun comes to those who go to the sun. 

Titles and wealth cannot make a Jeanne 
d’Arc or a Paul Revere. 

Stop looking through a keyhole and come 
out and look at the sky. 

No man is anything worth while if he is 
only a tailored clothes-horse. 

% 

A man may be bigger than six feet if he 
has any of the real Lincoln in him. 

Duty comes clearly to the men and women 
who are listening at their doors for the 
first knock. 

To be calm, content and cheerful, and at 
your best, despite the weather, affects for 
good every one around you. 

Faithfulness, Loyalty and Thoroughness 
are three words which we can all under¬ 
stand; and understanding them, practice 
them, from the greater unto the least. 

[77] 


MAXIMS 


Nothing can come out of a man’s headpiece 
which is not in him. 

Many persons expect to make much of 
their lives, yet go about it in a purposeless 
fashion. 


[ 78 ] 



HUMAN RELATIONS 


I 


D oing something to help another is 
the great thing. Really, it is learn¬ 
ing the ABC of happiness. 

A good name and a favored place with 
friends can be smashed like a brittle glass 
vase by stupidity and carelessness. 

The' mother’s eyes, and her mothering 
mind, seem to possess a hundred hands. 
She thinks of so many things, and does 
the many things she thinks of, bless her! 

Oh, the pity of it that a cross-grained man 
does not retreat from the world, or find an 
asylum where he may be cured of an 
infirmity which spreads misery and pain! 

Why should we suffer ourselves to take the 
smaller view of each other, when in point 
of fact, individually, we invariably desire 
that our friends should take the opposite 
course in speaking to others of ourselves? 

[79] 


MAXIMS 


Give us a good word, or none at all, as we 
pass along. 

Love reads without letters and counts with¬ 
out arithmetic. 

School yourself not to keep up an argument 
just because you are sure you are right. 

It is always best to give unwelcome advice 
privately, but open praise is of much value. 

The bitterest tears shed over graves have 
been for words spoken hastily and for deeds 
left undone. 

Friendship is not a cake that you make 
and put away in a cupboard. It is some¬ 
thing to share with others. 

To miss an opportunity to do a kindly 
thing, to give some one innocent pleasure, 
or lend a helping hand where needed, if in 
your power to do so, may be to risk the 
loss of a happy memory that might sweeten 
and lighten your way later on. 

[8o] 


HUMAN RELATIONS 


Some people object to personality, but 
what else is there that stands for reality? 

Gratitude takes three forms: a feeling in 
the heart, an expression in words, and a 
giving in return. 

Nothing costs less or counts for more than 
plain, unaffected courtesy in our relations 
with each other. 

In a long life, so far as memory serves, the 
writer never saw any person, woman or 
man, that he did not see something beau¬ 
tiful in. 

It often takes but a minute of a day to 
make some one happy, and there are often 
seven people happier if some little thing is 
done for one of them each day for a week. 

It is impossible for a man or woman to say 
that he or she has nothing to give. The 
heart, the time and a kindly thought are 
often worth more than gifts that cost 
money. 


[8i] 


MAXIMS 


Mothers never change. 

To make each other’s struggle harder is^ 
not the manliest thing we can do. 

Sometimes our best friends see the best 
in us, and that fact calls out of them their 
best to give to us. It is a pity, and may 
be a real loss, to become so busy that we 
have no time when our friends think of us 
and call. 

Many men and women, without realizing 
it, become so fossilized with come-day, go- 
day, duties that they neglect to express to 
each other their true feelings. Christmas 
times and the New Year, so near, are new 
wheels to start us again. 

What a wonderful thing for a man to get 
an impulse from a book, a lecture, speech, 
musical performance, a well-spent day, a 
visit to his college, his old parents living 
distant! How fine for one man to impart 
power to another man, that he may rise 
into a higher life! 


[82] 


HUMAN RELATIONS 

Manners may be overdone, but courtesy 
never. 

The more we give happiness, the more we 
have left. 

He who for himself makes not good choice, 
seldom makes good choice for others. 

No other influence is more powerful than 
the mother’s in shaping the man’s life. 

Isn’t it true of most of us that in our 
thoughts we associate Mother and Heaven 
together? 

It is often well worth while to quietly dig 
down through chilly human nature and 
find beautiful things growing under the 
frozen surface. 

Life is a great riddle, and must be studied 
with the clouds of circumstances—hoping, 
struggling, toiling, failing, falling, tempta¬ 
tions—and the need and value of a com¬ 
mon sympathy, before condemnations. 

[83] 


MAXIMS 


A man equipped with power or influence is 
seldom without enemies. 

The good breeding of ourselves is the best 
protection from bad manners. 

Trusting a man who once fell down, and 
giving him another chance, is one of the 
best ways to put him on his feet again. 

Almost every misunderstanding can be 
smoothed out by gentleness and patience, 
if taken up at the proper time and with 
good temper. 

Some people, without knowing it, carry 
with them a magnifying glass, with which 
they see, when they wish, other people’s 
imperfections. 

Have you ever noticed that the straightest 
stick is crooked in the water? In forming 
judgments of others, or in passing opinions 
upon current topics, let us go slow and be 
careful until we know all the existing 
circumstances. 


[84] 


HUMAN RELATIONS 

Objectors seldom do anything but object. 

Clean up every day the affairs of the day, 
if you possibly can. 

Very few names ever die of such as lived 
to serve their fellow-men. 

The burdens of life become heavier when¬ 
ever we fail to recognize that each of us is 
human, with a personality of his own. 

A community composed only of men, say 
what you please about it, would in course 
of time become a company of barbarians. 
Women are a necessity, for every city to 
become a city of homes, of gentle speech 
and of refinement of manners. 

If it be possible, go out of the way to 
lighten burdens. A word spoken, or the 
writing of a line or letter, or a step taken 
to brighten the corner where we are, may 
bring wonderful joy and peace that will 
find its way to the giver as well as to the 
one that receives. 


[85] 


MAXIMS 


How sure to be right a good woman is! 

No one was ever bankrupted by benevo¬ 
lence. 

Good manners are the art of making people 
easy and at home with each other. 

While we may not be able to make life a 
Garden of Eden, we must avoid helping 
to make it a Dead Sea. 

The speech a man or woman makes when 
mad does more harm than good. Anger 
is always a bad speechmaker. 

To shake one’s self out of one’s self into 
another person is a hard thing to do; but 
until we learn how to do that, we cannot 
help others, even a little, to live their lives. 

It is almost a crime to bring up a family 
in affluence, and for its master or chief to 
not arrange his affairs so that they shall 
not be exposed to sudden and severe pov¬ 
erty in case of death. 

[ 86 ] 


HUMAN RELATIONS 


The whole world will serve you if you will 
prove that you are honestly trying to be 
of service to it. 

To reach out a hand or give an idea to a 
deserving young man is a privilege not to 
be thoughtlessly set aside. 

Our best friend is the one who helps us to 
find out our real selves, and who endeavors 
to show us how to make proper use of our 
abilities. 

To speak the right word and do the right 
deed at the right time makes it easier for 
the man next to us in the little world in 
which we live. 

Why are we always exalting the mother 
gone, and so thoughtless, often, of the 
faithful woman by our side.^ It seems 
easy to give receptions to the genius from 
afar, and not recognize aright the genius 
that sits at the other end of the table and 
relieves us of a thousand responsibilities, 
as much ours as hers. 

[87] 


MAXIMS 


No generous soul ever enjoys his posses¬ 
sions so much as when others partake of 
them with him. 

Some of us may not be able to sing a note, 
but there is none who cannot set some 
other’s heart a-singing! 

Be good to the old people. If they are not 
always the brain of the family, they are 
almost always the heart of it. 

Our lives are not all to be measured by 
the same rule. The very mysteries of life 
quicken us to highest endeavors. 

After all, our deepest, truest life is lived in 
ones and twos and not in the uncounted 
population of the state and nation. 

Any man with but one eye will realize, 
almost without an hour’s thought, that no 
others have done so much for the world as 
women. Every one has his day, and at 
last the woman’s day has come, when she 
shall rise to her noblest mission. 

[ 88 ] 


HUMAN RELATIONS 


Thousands have proved that giving from 
principle is getting in fact. 

Beware of a man or woman that speaks 
of you well and ill at the same time. 

Any one may form a fair judgment of what 
a young man is by the way he treats his 
mother. 

Some will never learn the secret of truest 
happiness until they are able to give up 
something for the sake of others. 

It is possible by absorption in business 
affairs for a man to become stranded on the 
desolate shores of wealth or selfishness, and 
lose all personal interest in poor relations, 
old schoolfellows and unfortunate neighbors. 

There are men so profoundly confident of 
themselves that they say they attach no 
importance to public opinion, which is a 
proof that they do not merit its good-will. 
No man knows it all—neither a part of 
the time nor all of the time. 

. [89] 


MAXIMS 


We love new friends, but never so much as 
the old ones. 

To select your friends, companions and 
employees carefully, and trust them, is the 
best thing to do, as long experience teaches. 

When in doubt, steer the little boat of your 
uncertain mind to the side of mercy. Hard 
lines, or roughshod methods, will have a 
lesser force for good than mildness and 
clemency. 

A good, honest, face-to-face, outspoken 
criticism is not only welcome, but may be 
valuable; but an invisible critic, however 
well meant, tumbles into the waste-basket, 
discredited and on the road to destruction. 

Few of us understand each other. Little • 
some people know how dependent we are 
on something outside of ourselves. Often 
a single word or look would have changed 
an entire day. So many of us stand before 
each other only as closed books—contents 
unknown. 

[90] 


HUMAN RELATIONS 

Smiles are roses along the way. 

Pay out gold coins of gentle speech as 
change for another’s half-manners or rough, 
brusque speech. 

Whoever expects to have old friends must 
catch them young. Very few young fel¬ 
lows yoke up with old men. 

Unless we, each of us, keep moving among 
our friends each day, there will come no 
new sunshine into our hearts. 

It must be remembered that it is almost 
always difficult to be sensible of the merit 
of others unless it falls in with our ways, 
our lines of interest, or when it interferes 
with our own pretensions. 

What are the true marks of a good friend? 
To cheer you in well-doing, to warn you in 
danger, to give you courage to do better, 
to assist you with useful information, to 
point out to you your mistakes, to tell you 
of their own experiences. 

[91] 


MAXIMS 


I do not believe in discouraging people. 

Let us believe that courtesy is the sister 
of love. 

Friends, they say, are not friends until 
their friendship is tested. 

The best we can do in being helpful is not 
as much as we wish to do. 

There isn’t anything more beautiful about 
any man or woman than graciousness. 

After all, Christmas is but a big love affair 
to remove the wrinkles of the year with 
kindly remembrances. 

I always mark down the man who sees 
nothing but faults in other people. I think 
he has not got a good discernment of things. 

It is not uncommon for kindly people to be 
proud of one of their number who by his 
own abilities raises himself above his origi¬ 
nal position in life. 

[92] 


HUMAN RELATIONS 


It does not take so very much to make 
people happy if one just' has her wits 
about her. 

I can forgive a man who does me wrong, 
but not until he makes the utmost restitu¬ 
tion possible. 

People can scatter frowns or flowers, or 
growls or gladioli, and thus leave behind 
them noxious weeds or gardens beautiful. 

I would not speak to men and women like 
little children, even though they may be 
people I consider as kindly as little brothers 
and close friends. 

If there is something wrong and it is my 
fault, you owe it to me to come and tell me; 
and if it is your fault, you owe it to your¬ 
self to come and tell me. 

The sentiment of even the smallest gift 
often runs far into one’s heart, just as a 
drop of ink from a pen runs far over the 
paper and into sentiments and good cheer. 

[93] 


MAXIMS 


Attachments grow, and you can’t help it. 

The need of the age is for fraternity more 
than charity. 

Service is not so much a thing to talk about 
as it is a thing to perform. 

We must have sympathy for each other; 
but we must go on and finish. 

I cannot but think that it must be a blessed 
thing to minister to the dying. 

What a wonderful change is wrought when 
this quiet thing of a loving thought shoots 
round the world. 

A man may be a fine library in himself. 
What does it come to if he keeps all his 
poetry and knowledge to himself? 

What right has any man or woman to a 
foothold on the earth who fails to do a 
little part to help along as smilingly as 
the sun does his part, day by day? 

[94] 


HUMAN RELATIONS 


You can do almost anything with a man 
who has confidence in you. 

Friend: If you can write a book or do a 
deed to illumine a life, get at it at once. 

It is something to be thankful for to be 
born with a genial spirit and gracious 
manners. 

One touch of sympathy in sorrow, and the 
whole world knits together into a national¬ 
ity of peaceful endeavor. 

The world would be a perfect place to live 
in if everybody could not only speak, and 
write, but do, the right thing. 

To speak the right word, and do the right 
deed at the right time, make it easier for 
the man next to us in the little world we 
live in; when you and I, “you in your cor¬ 
ner, and I in mine,’’ are on the watch to do 
this, we will touch the next man to us, 
and the bigger world will be better to 
live in. 

[95] 


MAXIMS 


Keep sweet—little courtesies go with good 
manners. 

Our homes and stores, offices and work¬ 
shops, will be the better for unforgotten 
courtesies. 

In the daily round of our day’s work, little 
gates open to us all, especially if we do our 
part with each other. 

It will be rather a wonderful discovery to 
some people that other people are human 
and have feelings like our own. 

Just a little gift, costing one dollar, may 
give a thousand dollars’ worth of pleasure, 
and be a lifelong grateful memory. 

A transient act of kindness, little civilities, 
small courtesies as one passes along, may 
come to more than one would think. 

Almost every one needs something we can 
give. Perhaps it is only a word, a look, a 
touch, a letter, or a sign of sympathy. 

[96] 


HUMAN RELATIONS 


Mankind is one family. 

There are Knights of Politeness and Princes 
of Sunshine. 

Explanations that have to be further 
explained are inexcusable. 

A man may love his business, but he needs 
more love than that in his life. 

Isn’t it only little-minded people who fail 
or forget to show simple courtesy ? 

We can only reach each other with sympa¬ 
thy—the biggest word among the three or 
four big words of the world. 

The woman or man with burning heart 
who carries a little lamp to light the way, 
may lighten life’s burdens for somebody. 

To take care of a little bird seems like a 
small thing, but it is small things well done 
at home or in a large store that count up 
to the good. 


[97] 


MAXIMS 


There is no patent upon gentle courtesies. 

For every courtesy, little or big, let us say, 
“Thank you!’’ to one another. 

How far a cheerful look and word go in the 
make-up of the day’s contentments! 

Courtesy is a coin that we can never have 
too much of nor ever be stingy with. 

There is no human hand that cannot ring 
a joy-bell for two persons on Christmas 
morning—for himself and one other. 



CITIZENSHIP 


1 ET US do everything to cultivate 
^ greater Americanism. 

Every year there’s a man wanted some¬ 
where in the United States for leadership. 

The unfaltering good-will of the United 
States for all the nations of the globe, and 
the great prosperity with which America 
is blest, prompt us to magnanimity and 
generosity. 

What a throb of hope, courage and enthu¬ 
siasm will thrill the hundred and more 
millions of Americans when it is a fixed 
fact that America will take care of our 
ocean goings! 

We spend far too much money at pres¬ 
ent in elections and in trying to uphold 
w^hat the people don’t want. They have 
suffered from a power that has been built 
up and ought to be unbuilt. 

[99] 


MAXIMS 


The people in the public eye must do right 
for the public good. 

The American flag in a foreign port out¬ 
shines the beauty of all the scenery of sea, 
green cliffs and the forests growing down 
to water’s edge. 

We are all living under the Stars and 
Stripes. It is the flag of the land of our 
birth or the land of our adoption. We owe 
allegiance to no other flag. 

Public sentiment is an autocrat whose 
stamp goes and cannot be questioned, 
when it sets itself for or against certain 
things in cities and communities. 

Anything imperfect can be conquered if 
one is determined and industriously works 
at it. A person may have a crooked nose 
or a scar on one cheek, but it becomes - 
unnoticeable by the habit the person has 
unconsciously formed of turning the good 
side foremost, by which the other side is 
not seen. 


[ loo] 


CITIZENSHIP 


It is ours to keep the peace and attend 
strictly to our own affairs. 

It is a serious thing to fill people’s minds 
with wrong and to have poison spread all 
over the country. 

It is not buildings or famous ancestry that 
make a city. It is the living men who have 
visions and work unselfishly to make them 
materialize. 

Surely, whatever promotes the content of 
the people adds to their happiness and 
elevates the social life—makes for good 
citizenship. 

There is a living Washington, a living 
Franklin, a living Lincoln, and a living 
Liberty Bell, that should always be an 
inspiration to us. 

To make light of the fathers of the country 
and the principles they died for, may be 
to reap a harvest of bitterness and dissen¬ 
sion for the children who follow us. 

[ loi ] 



MAXIMS 


The country has given us everything we 
have got. 

It is an easy matter to criticize govern¬ 
mental policies, but it is difficult to remedy 
their defects. 

Put me down on the enlistment rolls, young 
enough for cabin boy, strong enough for 
stoker, or still in training for engineer. 

The people will never grumble at taxes for 
improvements if they can be sure they are 
getting full worth of the money so taken. 

It is only a small shrimp of a man who does 
not realize that to work for the public good 
in some form or other is the plain duty of 
every citizen. 

Men who take initiative, and do the most 
thinking to put a city forward, are com¬ 
monly decried and discredited and sore 
hampered, until some of them leave the 
city for conditions believed to be more 
favorable to honest endeavor elsewhere. 

[ 102 ] 


CITIZENSHIP 


No dissensions, jealousies nor small, vinegar- 
cruet men should be suffered to dwarf or 
discourage a city’s bigness or the efforts 
of its citizens to do great things for the 
entire city’s benefit. 

Let us be citizens first and foremost, and 
not merely bankers, lawyers, merchants 
and manufacturers; and we need not hesi¬ 
tate to tackle large city enterprises nor be 
in doubt of success. 

What word can I speak to awaken within 
you the proper sense of the incomparable 
opportunities of the future, and at the same 
time pass on to you my sense of the tremen¬ 
dous responsibility of the hour? 

The highest glory of this century will be 
for America when it is recognized by the 
world that its people have become reverent 
and obedient to laws, and have demanded 
and secured the prompt execution of every 
law on the Statute Book, that equal justice 
may be done to the poor and to the rich 
without delays or favor. 

[103] 


MAXIMS 


The worth of a nation is only to be counted 
up by the worth of its men. 

Hang out the glorious banner of our coun¬ 
try over our homes, schools and churches. 
It is a flag that shelters and protects and 
commands the attention of the world. 


1104] 


EDUCATION 


T here is no one whose horizon will 
not be widened, if he will only avail 
himself of the wholesome education of 
fellowship. 

True greatness is well shown in school¬ 
teachers, never impatient, never too wearied 
to miss the least chance to pave the way 
for a little child out of his perplexities and 
lead him out to a hill-top. 

To ‘‘loaf’’ on any job or avoid any plain 
duty is slackerism. A mother or father 
too busy to train a son or daughter in 
honor, honesty and straightforwardness is 
likely to regret it as a serious mistake. 

The human mind is an empty furnace, 
unless the coals of learning are put in it 
and the fires kept burning by persistent 
study. Natural smartness will not take 
the place of a well-filled mind to apply 
the advantage of stored-up knowledge. 

[1051 


MAXIMS 


Education is a slow thing. 

Have a good book to read all the time. 

I will not stand still: I must learn all the 
time. 

Proverbs are the children of daily experi¬ 
ence. 

The hardest work will not make a plum 
out of a potato. 

Wisdom can be learned from living examples 
better than from books which, in the main, 
speak only to our eyes. 

To wise people it is given to be in school 
every day, learning something interesting 
and useful from every incident of life. 

Beyond all estimate to a growing boy is 
the value >of a thoughtful, suggestive, 
encouraging man, from whom he can get 
ideas and the inspiration of his own example 
and methods of study and practice. 

[io6] 


EDUCATION 


Idle men think they know enough. 

To waste time with people from whom we 
can learn nothing is a losing business. 

A mother’s heart is always the best school 
a boy (no matter what his age is) ever had, 
for he is always her boy. 

Business experience and study obtains for 
a man a broad education, not entirely of 
a secondary nature, confined to his partic¬ 
ular calling. 

The greatest need of this present-day 
world is more smilers, singers, patient, 
good-natured, strong-minded men and 
women. Teachers, train the children so 
to be. 

Every one is better off with a pilot. Your 
mother and mine were always the first and 
best pilots. Our next pilot was the unself¬ 
ish school-teacher. Our next best pilot was 
the father, minister, priest and earliest 
comrade. 


[ 107] 


MAXIMS 


Let it always be a joy to do anything for 
a child. 

You can teach a merely dumb man, but 
you cannot teach a dumb fool. 

The ranks of churchmen must be refilled 
and enlarged from the Sunday-school. 

The Sunday-school, wherever it has had 
proper development, comes nearer than any 
other religious agency to answering the 
greater needs of the human race. 

Visit galleries of good pictures, and they 
will grow upon you—the love of art will 
grow in you, though probably you will be 
unconscious of it. It is like living with a 
good person. 

I 

The oak rises, flourishes and dies; the 
hardest granite, as time wears on, shows 
the sign of age; but the mind of man, 
renewed and cultured at each generation, 
grows on forever, preparing for wider and 
nobler service. 


[ io8] 


EDUCATION 

To think well is to grow well. 

Poetry is a great teacher, whether it be in 
words, or music, or other expression of 
great thoughts. 

In these days of free education and instruc¬ 
tion, every young man can set up for him¬ 
self sooner or later. 

I have lost time, strength, money in every 
direction, but never anything that was 
spent upon a Sunday-school. 

But few places will give as many satisfac¬ 
tory returns in lasting peace, permanent 
pleasure, and great usefulness, as a well- 
established Sunday-school. 

Faults and failures are unavoidable with 
human beings who, when careless, forget 
and neglect; but training and care are 
lessening these misfortunes, and there is 
hope for yet greater improvements. The 
system is right, and the wrong thing is 
always in an individual’s deficiency. 

[ 109] 


MAXIMS 


To be educated is to live. 

It is not good enough to be well read. We 
must help others by what we read. 

One form of education is to see things and 
ask questions about the things seen. 

To be a thorough business man or woman 
requires an education and a course of at 
least four years in a school of practice, to 
enable one to earn a fair living. 

Knowledge is not power unless there is 
forehandedness to keep the tank full of 
gasoline and have on board a supply of the 
right make of rubber tires, as well as the 
tinkering things for a broken-down engine 
or springs. 

The making of America cannot be done 
alone with picks and shovels to build its 
forges and ships and railroads. The real 
America of the future is what its boys and 
girls shall become by academic and voca¬ 
tional training. 


[no] 


EDUCATION 


An apple-tree does not seem to be doing 
anything until the vital sap runs ofF into 
apples. 

Education, and engagement in a settled 
vocation, are essential to the true road to 
a successful life. 

The man who never asks informations or 
puts off asking for them, saying, ‘T will 
do it another time,” is generally at the tail 
end of his class. 


LIFE 


T O be harping on the fame of the 
past is in most cases a weakness. 

Mushrooms grow in a night; but not live- 
oaks, banyan trees, whose roots reach down 
to the deep rocks. 

There is more artistic talent devoted to the 
adornment of feminine beauty than there is 
to painting and sculpture at the schools of 
art of the world over. 

There are many who choose to live under¬ 
ground, whose minds are lighted only by 
prejudices and jealousies. They see noth¬ 
ing clearly, and wonder why. 

It is from humble cradles and almost 
unknown mothers and fathers that have 
sprung the millions of those toiling, think¬ 
ing, hard-headed, common-sense people 
who are to determine the courses of the 
world’s measure. 


[ 112] 


LIFE 


Only poverty and idleness embitter life. 

Very few pleasures are let on long leases. 

The air is full of plans—and the plans are 
full of air. 

The old must go, and the young must step 
into their shoes. 

I cannot touch a single key that has a 
minor note in it. 

It is poor prosperity that is blind to the 
need of God’s favor. 

Little things, uncostly things, go far in the 
making of happiness. 

I never look at the sunrise that it does not 
give me a sunrise feeling. 

Great war’s, and all great movements of 
education, business and mercantile finance, 
require three things—common sense, loy¬ 
alty and action. 


[ 113 ] 


MAXIMS 


The richer some men grow, the smaller 
they seem. 

You can tell fretters by the tell-tale in 
their faces. 

Some men cannot manage a calf, but they 
are always wanting to carry an ox. 

The whole of life is but one day after 
another. None of us can ever find a lost 
day. 

This world is not yet completed. Each 
of us has some part to do. It may be a 
wondrous part. 

Whoever desires to make the best use of 
his life must find time, reasonable time, 
for rest and play. 

High thoughts and great thoughts come 
along the turnpike of almost every mind, 
some time or other, and are lost because - 
the overworked memory is unable to carry 
all that is offered to it. 

[ 114] 


LIFE 


Life’s little things are most potential for 
our happiness. 

Happiness and half-happiness are miles 
and miles apart. 

No one knows all that is hidden in this 
old earth and in the sky over our heads, 
nor has any man as yet fully measured 
the capacities of man. 

Human affairs have the same steps of 
growth as plants and some trees. First— 
slowest, the invisible growth of the root. 
The second, the hidden growth of the 
stems, and third, the root and the stem 
combined throw out the blossom and the 
flower. 

Astronomers tell us that some light is a 
thousand years in coming to the earth. 
We are now realizing an inheritance of the 
martyrdom, sacrifices, declarations and 
pledges of our forefathers, which were 
given far back in the dim past of human 
history. 


[115] 


MAXIMS 


Necessity is a powerful axe to cut the way 
through every kind of log. 

There is more blue sky above us than 
clouds, if we take the year all through. 

The world is greatly indebted to its obscure 
families, if we have read its biographies 
aright. 

The gift of light, each new Spring, must 
be something like that of Eden, when 
Adam found his beautiful bride. 

Let us not forget that there is another 
history that never gets into the news¬ 
papers. There are heroes and heroines 
uncanonized. 

The human mind is much like a mill. 
When it lacketh corn or wheat it clatters 
along, rattling away as if it were doing 
something, when it is simply wasting itself. 
Many persons have nothing to think about 
outside of themselves, so their thoughts 
grind up their peace and content. 

[ ii6] 


LIFE 


Haste trips up its own heels. 

Christmas is a Man born—not a sentiment. 

The worst ills are those we foresee, fret 
about and suffer from before they arrive. 
There is no use tying knots in advance 
upon the string of days yet to come. 

In every man there is that which does 
not grow old, if he did but know it. To 
suffer oneself to be talked into feeling old, 
and therefore to lay aside one’s occupation 
and to settle down into ease and inactivity, 
is in many observable instances to hasten 
the years and to hurry forward the end of 
life. 

It is true that money will not buy as much 
as it did fifty years ago, but think how 
much more valuable time is than it used 
to be. It is not impossible for a man or a 
woman to live in one year now as much as 
in ten years of the times of fifty years ago, 
and civilization and invention have not 
yet exhausted themselves. 

[117] 


MAXIMS 


Happy is the man who may tell his dreams. 

Of all the improvements that man has 
made, the greatest of all are in himself. 

A silent hour with happy thoughts is a 
restorative without a doctor’s prescription. 

Time is old, but every new morning is 
young. It comes to us saying, “Here I am 
to help you; use me well.” 

Time is the best critic of all life-work. 
Take the people “by and large,” their 
unbiased verdict is nearly right and just 
on every question. 

There are ninety-and-nine blessings, in 
most lives, to one misfortune, where good 
health, intelligence, integrity, common- 
sense and energy exist. 

Our forefathers seemed to have little, but 
produced much; we have much, and must 
confess to producing but little in propor¬ 
tion to what they did. 

[ii8] 


LIFE 


Who ever saw a woman that looked ugly 
if properly dressed ? 

People who cannot find time for recreation 
are obliged sooner or later to find time for 
illness. 

If the weather does not happen to be good 
for my work to-day, it’s good for some other 
man’s, and will come around to me to¬ 
morrow. 

How often little visits, and ordinary con¬ 
versations, bring us a message from the 
sky, never to be forgotten by those who 
listen hard! 

Life is strangely made up of things that 
in themselves seem inconsequential, which, 
when traced through from beginning to 
end, are almost miracles. 

Oftentimes any hastening to speak loses 
by display of ignorance. Many regret their 
much speaking, but hardly any person 
regrets shortness of speech. 

[ 119] 


MAXIMS 


Pride is a dangerous taskmaster. 

A woman’s standards in the main are 
higher than a man’s. 

It is not the length of life that counts. It 
is its depth and purpose. 

Some of us have found that it lightens our 
little burdens to turn to other people who 
are bearing burdens without finding relief. 

The darkest shadows any of us can get 
under are those a man makes for himself 
when he gets in his own light, persuading 
himself to believe that his neglects, mis¬ 
takes and age have passed him along to a 
time when it is impossible to be of use. 

Men are men, but they were not all cast 
in the same mould. Bricks are bricks, and 
they can all be built in the same wall, 
but every man must be himself, walk and 
work as he likes, and not expect to be 
built into any wall to serve exactly as the 
man next to him. 


[ 120 ] 


LIFE 


Have you noticed that there is a dignity, 
even in animals, that some human beings 
might study to advantage ? 

Moths that eat up time are worse than the 
little, flying, silent things that bite holes 
into our clothes and carpets. 

One sunset, one stormy night, and one 
moonlight hour, in their actuality, are 
more than all the books and poems of the 
heavens you have read. 

A real boy with good principles, and with 
a vision to do something even better than 
the fathers who have passed on, is worth 
more to Pennsylvania than the discovery 
of an oil well or the opening of a new coal 
mine. 

There is more common-sense among the 
common people than many of us suspect. 
Invariab’y they use up less time in making 
their errands known and in the letters they 
write, than lots of our best friends and 
best-educated business people. 

[ I2I ] 


MAXIMS 


Life is a beautiful thing. Our Heavenly 
Father did not put us down here to mourn 
and lose ourselves in some kind of fog. 

The idlest of all idleness is reading with a 
dormant mind, which is like unto a running 
stream over a rocky bed, leaving no impres¬ 
sion whatever. 

Man is the only creature on the globe that 
ignores the Creator and defies His right to 
arrange the harmonies of His own world 
for the happiness of its people. 

Thousands and thousands of people have 
never been outside of the State they live 
in, and, if given the liberty of saying so, 
they are living in the State of Ignorance 
of Natural Resources. 

There are many croakers this summer, 
upon the edges of lakes and creeks; there 
they sit, croaking and croaking; but they 
are only frogs, after all. And so it is all 
along life’s shores, but the croaking men 
are only frogs of men. 

[ 122 ] 


LIFE 


Don^t try to blame your faults on women. 

The path of virtue leads through the valley 
of sacrifice. 

It is a tremendous thing to live: dying is 
next to nothing. 

A man may know a good many things and 
not properly apply them. 

In this busy life there is not time for soft 
words upon serious questions. 

Who says that the ‘'good old days” were 
better than the present days ? 

There have been and still are, possibly, 
noble heads with nothing in them. 

Our first thoughts, that come from we 
know not where, are often the very best. 

The man'whose eye is ever on himself and 
his own little corner is often uninstructed 
as to what is going on about him. 

[ 123 ] 


MAXIMS 


Tell your story and quit! 

Truth can always stand up by herself. 

Only a few people do any all-around 
thinking. 

How the world ever got on till each of us 
came along, is our enigma! 

Lincoln refused to play politics, but now 
it is politics to play Lincoln. 

It is only women that can do two or more 
things well at the same time. 

It does not require large things, nor does 
it take large money, to make people glad. 

Patriarchal croakers sit squat on the edge 
of inland places and emit sounds and groans 
and weepings and documents against the 
times. What have they done to make 
times better? What useful thing have 
they invented, or what word of cheer have 
they spoken ? 


[124] 


LIFE 


It is a great folly to run away from facts. 

We have not grown old: years do not make 
age. 

I believe it to be true that every baby is 
born with a song in its mouth. 

The art of costuming a woman may rightly 

be classed as one of the fine arts. 

* 

A California redwood tree has grown for a 
thousand years, and it is still only a red¬ 
wood tree. 

The years that roll so swiftly by often 
demolish our fondest dreams, because so 
many happenings occur to interfere. 

Second-rate men know something about 
everything. Lincoln was a first-rate man 
who knew everything about one thing. 

There are two freedoms—the first, where a 
man Is free to do what he likes; the other, 
where a man is free to do what he ought. 

[ 125] 



MAXIMS 


Many an empty bottle has a large label 
on it. 

Where did the birds go to school to learn 
how to build nests? 

The closer we unite with Nature, the sim¬ 
pler and lovelier we may be. 

There are things that count more for good 
than bank-notes or gold coins. 

All things in Nature are like Janus, two- 
faced; and have a double lesson for us. 

The vital struggle of a war is before the 
first shot is fired—when the plans are made. 

Dear old Autumn! Let us drink deep with 
our eyes and senses of her odors and en¬ 
thralments while we can. 

God never made a man just because He 
wanted one more man: He wanted you. 
He started you with a different-shaped 
head, different face, and different thoughts. 

[126] 


LIFE 

No nation is an accident or a matter of 
chance. 

It is not time to moralize when people are 
starving. 

Music has been well called the universal 
language of the world. 

God hears a woman’s prayers, I believe, 
before He hears any other. 

To coin a false nickel is as bad as coining 
a false quarter—the principle is the same. 

When the bucket is full of clean, fresh 
water, no one would think of carrying it 
to the well. 

The twilight hours are good times to 
become acquainted with the world in 
which we live. 

We do well to hark back for light and 
inspiration to our great men’s clear visions, 
sturdy purposes and safe examples. 

[ 127] 


MAXIMS 


Nothing happens of itself. 

A crooked road is always the longest one 
around 

Let happiness run after you when it 
wants to. 

Wars and waitings and weariness cannot 
last forever. 

No cup creates the water, nor is the water 
to be purchased. There’s plenty of it. 

If you want to know what cherries, straw¬ 
berries and peaches taste like, ask the chil¬ 
dren and the birds. 

Every man is his own philosopher and his 
own individuality: let him work it out. 
Time will test and prove him. 

A rainy day is a good day for me. I don’t 
mind a rainy day. My mother used to say 
I never whistled any other time but on 
rainy days. 


[ 128] 


LIFE 


Books go well with gardens. 

Something says the past was only seed¬ 
time. 

The man of all men I am most afraid of is 
myself. 

Corn and men have to be ripened and well 
seasoned to be of any good. 

Many men build a little piece of life near 
the ground and never soar upward. 

Let those who follow me continue to build 
with the plumb of Honor, the level of 
Truth and the square of Integrity, Educa¬ 
tion, Courtesy and Mutuality. 


THE END 


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•* f I 


Life Stories of Famous Americans 


MARK TWAIN; A Biography 

By Albert Bigelow Paine 

Mr. Paine gave six years to the writing of this famous 
life history, traveling half way round the world to 
follow in the footsteps of his subject; during four years 
of the time he lived in daily association with Mark 
Twain, visited all the places and interviewed every one 
who could shed any light upon his subject. 

EDISON: His Life and Inventions By Frank 
Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerpord Martin 

The authors are men both close to Edison. One of 
them is his counsel, and practically shares his 
daily life; the other is one of his leading electrical 
experts. It is the personal story of Edison and has 
been read and revised by Edison himself. 

MY QUARTER CENTURY OF AMERICAN 
POLITICS By Champ Clark 

A fascinating story of one of the most prominent 
and best hked men in American political history of 
our times, which will appeal to persons of all shades 
of political belief. The book is not only interesting, 
but highly important as a permanent record of our 
generation. Illitstrated. 

LIFE OF THOMAS NAST 

By Albert Bigelow Paine 

The story of America’s first and foremost cartoonist; 
the man who originated all the symbols; whose pictures 
elected presidents and broke up the Tweed ring. More 
than four hundred reproductions of Nast’s choicest 
work. 

HARPER & BROTHERS 
Franklin Square New York 








Philosophy — Practical and Profound 


THE MIND IN THE MAKING 

By James Harvey Robinson 

A fascinating volume by this well-known historian 
which tells how the human mind of to-day has evolved. 
It is a combination of history, with psychology—the 
history of the human race traced through the develop¬ 
ment of the mind. It points out the contributions to 
mental development by our savage ancestors, by the 
sophisticated Greek civilization, by scholars of the 
Middle Ages, by Bacon, Galileo, Copernicus, Descartes, 
and by the stimulating research to-day into human 
beliefs and institutions. 

THE BEHAVIOR OF CROWDS 

By Everett Dean Martin 

Mr. Martin explains the “crowd mind"—what it is, 
how it is formed, how it operates. He shows how the 
individual is carried along by forces undreamed of by 
the millions they control. Read this book. You will 
enjoy it and gain by its revelations. 

FROM THE UNCONSCIOUS TO THE 

CONSCIOUS By Gustave Geley 

Doctor Geley summarizes modern psychological 
science and explains his own new theory of the abyss 
which separates the unconscious from the conscious 
mind. He is one of the first men of science to present 
evidence of the persistence of personality after death. 
Twenty-three illustrations. 

GETTING WHAT WE WANT 

By David Orr Edson 

Are you “getting what you want” in health, happi¬ 
ness, money? If not, it’s probably because you are not 
doing the sort of work you are fitted for by mental and 
physical heritage. Dr: Edson’s new book will show you 
now to psychoanalyze yourself. 

HARPER & BROTHERS 
Franklin Square New York 




































































































































































































































































































